Ken Allan Dronsfield is a published poet who has recently been nominated for The Best of the Net and 2 Pushcart Awards for Poetry in 2016. His poetry has been published world-wide in various publications throughout North America, Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa. Ken loves thunderstorms, walking in the woods at night, and spending time with his cat Willa. Ken's new book, "The Cellaring", a collection of haunting, paranormal, weird and wonderful poems, has been released and is available through Amazon.com. He is the co-editor of the poetry anthology titled, Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze available at Amazon.com. A second anthology, Dandelion in a Vase of Roses will be released around the first of the new year. A Chaotic Infirmity Can you hear defiance from a throbbing heart cry out through tears fall from the hazy sky. Ask not for pleasures nor await agonizing pain; Only to inhale life again. adrift in an aura of love; a wisp from high above. ray from a Nebula's haze weaving a pretentious maze. walk a path where piety leads. Press on as others shall leave; bruised and forever tortured, For my life's intention was blessed love; But reality becomes a chaotic infirmity. Dérive (Drift) Look there, a lone leaf drifts in the breeze floating down through the now bare trees finally alight upon a bleached white skull that has laid there since last Halloween. coffee pot makes it's melodious growl the old cat's tail thumps keeping time blueberry's sit in a purple stained bowl I wonder if you've left to go got the mail. thoughts, like the leaf, drift in your mind time passes quicker than it did as a child our little dog barks chasing the what-zits coffee in tow, another oak log to the fire. blissful blues waft from the parlor stereo the cat looks up as the horn section plays you return from a walk with a hurried step the pancakes smell wonderful you know? Candle on the desk flickers in the fall wind I write another verse to the autumn poem tossing the ink, but it doesn't sound right breakfast awaits, we dérive to the kitchen. Resonance of Love Patterned pain from the lost kindred resonance of love felt by the heartless wanton joking of riddles in pig Latin whistling rhymes iced in Plato's ear. Tasting dreams of all spoiled children orbs adrift disappearing before dawn pious discontent of rights in the soul liars are left to cower in deep ground. Alight upon the head of a stick pin street urchins smile for a lone dollar as a red tide abates at the low ebb whirling about we simply wait to die. Vibration causation in a feted toddy stomp upon the loneliest of memoirs pen lines to your springtime crush a resonance of love just drifts away.
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Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & softcover book anthologies. Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including twelve different divisions of The Smithsonian. Recipe Required Why isn’t a ‘play on words’ a production, in a theatre, and actors before an audience? Aren’t performers in a play? Dialogue deals with words. Words in sentences create scenes imagined by the playwright. There’s no ‘playwrong’ so even ‘right’ isn’t really right. But play is what school children do at recess, yet mothers tell offspring to go out and play. Board games are played, as is an instrument. So language confuses us. A poem about ‘play’ seems impossible without specific guidelines. Beginning Did I ‘start’ at birth or childhood when memory formed? Was a point of origin when script was slanted across clean paper and I learned to write? Learning. Did I ‘become’ as tassels were turned and degrees acknowledged my formal education? Maybe ‘me’ originated when my last name was replaced with my mate’s on a government identification card. Something began when my body held humans. “I’m originally from” lingered as circumstance had me move hundred of miles from familiar and family. With pre-paid cemetery papers, and less left than what’s behind, my origin and conclusion will combine. Remember desk blotters? Liquid ink slid silently across the legal document as a fountain pen allowed my signature to stain the surface. Living Will: a paper proclaimed my dying should not be prolonged. Script is no longer a school subject, and few know what a fountain pen is; there was no way to protect these from becoming a thing-of- the-past. A piece of paper with my hand- written name might eventually also be discarded when I cease. Living is a gift from parents. Why can’t I ink ‘thanks’ on the formal official decree to not let my death linger. I’m living now; this is my will. Life is a privilege. There’s no dotted line for that. Donal Mahoney, a native of Chicago, lives in St. Louis, Missouri. He has worked as an editor for The Chicago Sun-Times, Loyola University Press and Washington University in St. Louis. His fiction and poetry have appeared in various publications, including The Wisconsin Review, The Kansas Quarterly, The South Carolina Review, The Christian Science Monitor, Commonweal, Guwahatian Magazine (India), The Galway Review (Ireland), Public Republic (Bulgaria), The Osprey Review (Wales), The Istanbul Literary Review (Turkey) and other magazines. Some of his work can be found at http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-locksmith/donal-mahoney-poet.html#sthash.OSYzpgmQ.dpbs A New Yo-Yo on Christmas Day I took grandson Jack for a walk in the park high noon on Christmas Day. He wanted to see his yo-yo dance but his parents said no yo-yo tricks in a crowded house with a Christmas tree. So after Mass they wrapped Jack up in a snowsuit worn by the Michelin Man when he was a child. And Jack and I strolled off, laughing through the snow. The park was empty when I showed Jack yo-yo tricks I’d learned many decades ago. I told him he would soon be tall enough to do these tricks on his own. Jack laughed and asked if we could come back to the park that night and watch the comets. I asked him why. That’s when I learned comets are yo-yos and God swings their strings on the other side of the moon. Another Christmas Alone Widow in a rocker pets her calico cat long strokes slowly. With the cat purring and the widow humming Beethoven fills the house with memories of the many years of mistletoe and aftershave as snowflakes dot the window. Big Bang for Little Billy This was the first Christmas Billy was old enough to speak when he saw his gifts under the sparkling tree. His parents were waiting to hear what he’d say. Billy laughed and jumped and clapped his hands. With a big smile, he shouted “Santa brought me these!” Then Daddy picked Billy up, bounced him on his knee and whispered softly, “There is no Santa, son. There was a Big Bang while you were asleep. And all your gifts landed under the tree.” Ambulance Lights Willie McKee works second shift gets home at midnight makes hot cocoa flops in his recliner and counts the stars through the blinds nods to the moon and every week or so sees ambulance lights pull up at Tom’s house blink for an hour while the crew goes in and restarts him. But on Christmas Eve the ambulance lights pull away in minutes and a hearse pulls up two men go in bring out the gurney as old Tom's wife stands on the porch and smokes and Willie McKee tells his wife neighbors will never hear Mabel curse old Tom again. After Christmas You’re glad when the holidays are over and everyone’s gone home and the ribbons and wrappings are balled up in the garbage. Next year it won’t be a bother after they drop the lid and six men wobble you out to the greensward where your family cries as you’re lowered. Never again will you worry about finding the right gift or putting the right star on the tree or getting folks to church on time. But if He’s not waiting to greet you on the other side what will you do, pray tell, about the one who is. Emily Jo Scalzo received her MFA in Fiction from California State University, Fresno in 2010. Writers she has worked with include Lance Olsen, Doug Rice, Corrinne Hales, John Hales, David Anthony Durham, Patricia Henley, and Steve Yarbrough. Her work has been published in Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, The Mindful Word, Blue Collar Review, and Midwestern Gothic. If the Human Race is the Only Race, Why Does this Shit Still Happen? #AllLivesMatter makes me want to flay my skin from my body, strip by pale strip to offer to my brethren who were born without the benefit of lazy melanin. Times like these I hate the liberty I was born to, have benefitted from, continue to possess, allowing me to live without fear I'll be shot if I'm pulled over. If—I probably won't be stopped if I don't signal a turn quickly enough, have a broken taillight, fit a profile or vague suspect description, look “bad” or “on something,” or am just in the wrong neighborhood. I wish we white people could see the damage we do to bodies of color but cognitive dissonance slices deep and most prefer ignorance to agonized awareness of the fortune we enjoy by accident. So we falsely invoke Dr. King, whitewash him for our purposes, pretending we'd approve of him while shaming #BlackLivesMatter for the same direct action as they fight his same battles against similar demagogues because we can't learn from history, doomed to repeat ad nauseum the sins of our forefathers against our fellows of the human race, ignoring our privilege to protect it. The Omnivore’s Dilemma A cow’s tongue is smooth and slimy, its licks strong against the flesh, scraping a circular pattern. I learned this at thirteen, escaping to our disused pasture after bad days at school to tear long grass from their stalks and push them through the electric fence to the neighbor’s cattle enclosure. I didn’t earn this sensation the first day-- the black and white steer didn’t come to the fence until I had backed away—but after a few weeks, I could pet him as he munched happily on my gifts, his weathered fur rough against the tips of my fingers through the wire barrier in the quiet of the field. One day he nuzzled up to my arm while I pet him and pushed out his long tongue to lick my arm, bathing it as though I were a calf-- a cow destined for the slaughterhouse offering me affection in the only way he could, lost when we moved a few weeks later. The Reason I Blocked You on Facebook I don't feel like playing nice anymore, plying proper rhetoric while you spew hyperbole, my voice lost in the vacuum public discourse has become. Baited with insults and slander, you try to tempt me with demagoguery, never listening unless I snap and then only to point at my lost temper, believing it a sign you've won, that discussion is a battle one can win, and it's like fighting a monolith formed of excrement and bile, an exercise in futility destined to end in disease. To My Father I’ve never told you I secretly check your breathing at night, listening in the dark if you’re not snoring when I go to the bathroom. I was on the phone five years ago all the way in Fresno, when Mom said, “Oh, God, your father just fell off the roof,” and hung up, leaving me in static. You’re the only person I know who, in his sixties, would still climb up on his mother-in-law’s roof in a tornado-producing Midwest rainstorm to clean her overflowing gutters. I waited for the call only to learn you were stubborn, lying on Grandma’s couch insisting you were fine, when in fact three vertebrae had been broken. You would be on disability for months. When I flew in for my birthday you met me in the airport, called my name. I didn’t recognize you, dismissed you as speaking to someone who shared my name. You were never old in my eyes until that moment. You had stopped shaving because it hurt too much, had a full beard, mostly salt with a bit of pepper, when I’d only ever seen you clean-shaven in all my life. It was the summer Mom got the dogs-- one, at first, and then five when she gave birth, then back down to two again-- company while you sat at home in your hard plastic shell. Five years later, your back wakes you, and you spend nights on the couch in the living room. You’re too feeble to even lift the fallen pink throw pillow sewn by your mother. When I pick it up for you, you hold it like a child might hold a teddy bear, and fall right to sleep, leaving me to listen for your breathing from my room. Robin Wyatt Dunn lives in a state of desperation engineered by late capitalism, within which his mind is a mere subset of a much larger hallucination wherein men are machines, machines are men, and the world and everything in it are mere dreams whose eddies and currents poets can channel briefly but cannot control. Perhaps it goes without saying that he lives in Los Angeles. wait when who said but then the end or the beginning no, the space between not the middle but the space before what becomes possible is possible the beat before the beat you remembering you before you become you that moment: wait for it and in waiting for it you're waiting for yourself to become yourself who are you then before you're you after you've stopped being you you're nobody yet an absence in the frame of time wanderer without a road energy with no form wait for the beat in the musicless dark to remind you of all so many things that have happened and will happen to all that's you * my light shines death cuts storms out from the boom of time I loom over your bed I heard the call out of the wall pound it out with a hammer and find out who sent the devil to our city in his many forms like you and me * unlovely my lovely bedove black universes with your lustful gowns * no holy rite can separate you from my eye still terribly fused: what transformation endeavors to explain to my trembling body decide whose eager dark swarms over the microphone of your thoughts. * some fire of your holy vengeance ignites our American scenery in our little schoolhouses on our stumps at evening I watched the boy and his gun disappear into the woods what is the boy under the land's hands and what have I become these years? * no death for me comes sweeter than in Los Angeles city of light light buried sweet under my tongue over the storm burn my house torch my village kill my family take my tongue out of my mouth in los angeles with your words right out of your mouth burn the stalwart boat eat its skin smear its ash over your face beat me with the meaningless sounds of hollywood bludgeon me to death beat me with the meaningless sounds of hollywood give me meaning burn the cinema to the ground and hang em high let their lovely faces adorn the pedestals of los angeles over the storm of light now and tell me who was it that came who heard your voice vibrating over the soundscape of god and decided 'this is the guy' * I will be gentle with myself life writing on top of my head an illustated poem for five cents not the tunnel of love but the song heard around the corner the singer vanished before you turned love is like that where you never know who it was * load the weapon and fire with my love each round suspends my body inside of death throw me and fill me with your worth with your brazil with your thrill of my blood my flooding gerundative running sunning gunning my love * it's nothing; a dead village a scar over the weight of destiny some weather system subjugating the Nile of stars into the roof of your body some saint cut down in south central give me the blood let me put it on my face I am an Indian * a saint to duke in a bent howled form in a bent holy form thriving en masse in the air hear him announce the seasons hear him imbibe the deep dance under the seasonal sun all the work is done under the evening of his mouth Lianne Kamp came to Boston many years ago to write poetry. As is often the case, life had different plans than she did. Poetry has always been present but it is only during this last year that she has chosen to share it in a public forum. She has been published in a number of journals, primarily by Prolific Press, and in Tuck Magazine. Mainly, she writes poetry to make the world more panoramic by watching it more closely. Lullaby for a Weary Bird Watcher On this blanket hushed night under yellow moonlight and lost stars I crawl on concepts of magic carpets, hovering above your dream infused sleep, to mutter a stream of nocturnal wings fluttering into your ear. I whisper a scarlet tanager, cerulean warbler, dusky flycatcher and a sparrow or two, breathe a deep thrasher, cedar waxwing, goldfinch, then finish with a lark. I fill you with birdsong and blessings that you wake with tiny bird feet impressions on the soft part of your cheek. ******* The Journey When Dad landed a new gig they would load us up, my two sisters and I, along with everything we owned piled into the back of our aging station wagon. I was happiest during these journeys which always involved night roads, moonlit trees, and pajamas – they were lullabies in a series of uncertainties. I recall our small bodies squirming on a mattress in the back, muffled Laughter, and my parents hushed voices from the front seat, that we knew enough to ignore. We couldn’t tell you where we were going but we knew the walls would be bare, the rooms would be small, and for a time the adventure would be over. Wherever it was, each night I would bury my face in my pillow, hold it tight against my eyes until I could see beyond the four walls of water stains and peeling paper, past the dreary light and over the basket rim of my hot air balloon - sailing high over a magical new kingdom free and fictional as Dorothy herself. ************* Beckoning in Ruins I walk through the woods and the clearing finds me – it always does. There is nothing here now except leaves and sunlight patterning the forest floor. Stay, it says and I sit with eyes closed – watch the walls fade into view. Fall colors bleed into the brown hues of the floor boards. Memories take shape inside its frame. Close your eyes, you said and my eyelids transformed into a kaleidoscope of light as the sun laced through the veil of trees above our heads. Trust me, you said and fit my hand into yours. I listened to the sound of the leaves parting in autumn waves beneath our feet. Look, you whispered and led me inside this place that was longing for a reason and we breathed our secret into its tired abandoned walls. I know now – It was our breath that kept it standing. When I open my eyes the walls will evaporate under the sun and the air will rush from my lungs. I press my eyelids tight – reach for the walls, trace the grain of the wood with my fingers and listen once more to the echoes of our secret. ************ Debasis Mukhopadhyay lives & writes in Montreal, Canada. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Curly Mind, Posit, Yellow Chair Review, I am not a silent poet, New Verse News, Mannequin Haus,Thirteen Myna Birds, Of/With, Scarlet Leaf Review, With Painted Words, Quatrain.Fish, Whale Road Review, and elsewhere. His work has been nominated for the Best of the Net. Follow him at https://debasismukhopadhyay.wordpress.com/ or @dbasis_m on Twitter. after the steep climb the loose trail plays a hymn so much like the immersed clouds dwindling away in a bird's bath beneath a bottomless sky filling the silence with no imagination this horizon is too aloft to gaze on your lost words burrowing underneath I am left with just a wilderness punctuating the receding memories of blood & anemones out of the spine every so often I'd imagined them forever still forever trampled on now ambling along the edges of the earth I see them folding softly into entropy with no imagination ballad of an overturned canoe everything looks blue this sky parts & full weighing down the rust red canoe that soared through the endless water like a blur of a light drowned in the fish wriggling & learning the crepuscule on a hook look in this blue where the mirror of the sky makes a canoe to become larger than itself & look in that blue where an overturned canoe lurks in the recesses of the mirror before everything looks just another blue pursed by a fading rope missing the dock the remnant of our time you thought perhaps a lonely blue was always bleeding in my hands that wrote letters & poems hands that squeezed your rain-soaked hands in a long gone night when under the halogen street lights yellow lacquered clouds were smiling out of gloom to sing you wings & roots hands that melted then far too quick down your memory to become skeletal pressing into stillness now you could perhaps turn your head & see those hands of mine tracing the oars clasp the passage of fleeting ibis you would even see them flinching under a blue never bargained for I was told the oars float & they do just that they keep floating away like in a ballad of an overturned canoe in a summer lake backdropping a clumsy death or two yet you would not see them. ain't even no mud where your feet could sink in. your dress is rising up from beneath the water a slimy blue testing the surface like an echo here ain't no echo in my head because I am not seeing anything not seeing the weeds tacked to your body the weeds that like stitches turning into scars deep across your skin the skin I begged for alike your soul the soul is a soul that even a doll always survives without looking up at the blue of the sky you are not swimming & I never wanted to swim across anything but a muted song here ain't no mud no night dark no thickness of shadows no murmur of fallen leaves where our feet could sink in I wish I wish though together we could behold our drowned bodies curdling back to our drowned memories all in a luciferous sheen here ain't nothing under our feet here bubbles just blooming to get past the hollow water & there up above the dock our kids chase magpies flying toward the horizon & when tired they just look into the bottom of the bucket to contemplate the yellow lacquered perches still flopping Birobidzhan or one day in the life of Jose Maria Jose Maria rain falls on the fecund smell of Bay rain falls on the salty pebbles & Santa Barbara devours all the lullabies that could still kindle your bones perhaps it's never enough to confess wear age & dreams like a reindeer skull a stateliest trophy held in thrall emptied of the sad blood for evermore what's left in these days is just the renewed shadows of footfalls seeping down the loose spine playing a hymn you'd heard for the first time in Birobidzhan where the Trans-Siberian railroad would waver & die away in the ripples of Bira swallowing the blood from beneath the patina of sky & where the smoke of its engine would forever lie in wait in the tangle of the tiles & slated roofs, bell towers, lofty walls, & cross roads like your longing instilled in a sepia postcard unlocking that gypsy girl tresses falling over her shoulders who would always laugh while making love to you & who thought before the shadow of the pogroms could loom closer the best thing to do was to exorcise the stars from above our graves no Ivanushka was never her real name neither yours is Jose Maria today in the sunroom a train of shadows passes you hull down in a flightless air wrapping & unwrapping all time & clime that may congeal in your lungs like a lump of light or a flower-lit stream having aim to unleash the soul to resound one day blindly such long waiting in hope it's like watching the jiggers burrowing blindly head-first into your skin breathing defecating & expelling eggs time is nothing just flecked with eyes all around your suspended skull — a noble skull for how-to-draw-a-cubist-still life I always thought-- cut flowers wane under your eyes still helmed with a mud-moon spurting above a forlorn Birobidzhan yet to surmise its own doom the leg of lamb crumples tenderly to the flame in the oven gleaming with the edge of your febrile years the first & last time you prayed you said I am lost perhaps another cup of cocoa perhaps another smuggled cigar & no funneling back to the nights of broken glass perhaps it's never enough to go on asking your blood is today sliding down too what has held the weight of your world of poems that all your fairy tale lovers would lift one day like an old slouch hat sodden with rain covering your skull time is nothing eyelids gathering a streak of light over a slashed pomegranate a cubist still life ha I always thought a ravenous skull Jose Maria the dreams keep pounding on your bald pate wherever you touch your meaty lovers will come out of the hollow of the map of the world & kiss you on your eyes glimpsing scene by scene the memories vomiting up their stomachs wherever you touch the Carnival Queen will come out of the hollow of your flesh to exhume & then to forsake her love leaving you to a voice that appears as if “air has been trapped in the stomach & forced through the mouth after being out of water” something that does a lobster in the boils something that didn't do those who flooded the camps & clamored like burning tulips yes tulips cleave apart yet the weight of their color weighing in your eyelids perhaps makes sense to move off from those amorous mouths of your lovers still tentacled to your chest & just appearing to be red a still life to clear your paths through a maze of whorls standing out bold & black like barbed wires slicing off the blue veins of loves & deaths you wish you had known a home a woman a riverbed of incandescent sky & not a memorial train taking you again & again inside a diagram of transitive earth where the stations float up backward & rains keep on oiling the metal wheels of your train loaded with the then Jews — something we all can relate to our best childhood movies -- & soon their heads rolled off to sleep in a webbing of dried blood for the years to come crashing onto the shingle of their longings time is nothing the train keeps coming back crawling through your eye sockets like dreams you wish the dreams are all scooped out of your skull for a day or two time is nothing a Jew is always a Jew joining in the refrain I am a so marvelous Jew singing singing the map of the world flies open wherever you touch places are all warped with trying to curl you wish you have found their bones still falling by the cattle cars & warbling unperturbed Jose Maria rain falls on the salty grapes mounting up on your Picasso's hat women you met in Vienna dangled in a party shop like a pendulum unsuspecting the coming years ticktock ticktock women stifling in Paris reflected in a polished parquetry like candled lustres foretelling the coming years tocktact tocktact time is never the depths between the soft mounds of those creatures the everlasting is the curved staircase God betroths you in a vermilion twilight of clouds if you pay the price to collapse in the arms of a china doll knowing in heart you will die like a Jew someday in a mute canvas like a mistake resounding beneath the rabbit skin glue & what death clenching with both hands the words you would have trafficked under your breath all through your life like a poet who lives & dreams of the passage of days in Birobidzhan with a wounded conscience of a smuggler of burned potatoes awaiting a reckless wind to break into a cold sweat inside his sonnets & awaiting a slanting rain to press on his alleys of burning stones you are that poet walking backward from the backdrop of Birobidzhan to a dream-squandered sky still left to stroll in the blood or you are that souvenir bending over an open grave to bid rejoice ha blessed the skull folly to this still life still-untitled or a bleached deer skull antlers awakened out of dreams Brandon Nakasato, 35, of Anchorage, Alaska is a Research Analyst with Alaska's Department of Health. Nakasato has been published previously in Vox Poetica, The Houston Literary Review, The Catalonian Review and Calliope Nerve. He is the former editor of the magazine, CENTURY 121, and is currently finishing his first collection of poems. Murmurs from a crimson cloak My heart beats out its mournful bloodsong: "I want to be remembered" A constant request to close the loop, Enough to tempt terror But my mind smoothes a borrowed veil of comfort; Krishna's old and familiar lie. Before Time succeeds she consoles: "It will be so." I am afraid of lightning and shadows Life is motion, Love is attention: The tension in flashed evocations inside an electrical shell of flesh; Is eternal movement through emotion. The ground of my being is becoming grounded in a love of life. A tolerance of the symbols shimmering on that cave wall. Love and Radical Honesty What do you want in life? What do you love? The Inquisitor inquired. "I love dopamine: In pursuit of novelty, if I find that another human causes a profound and massive repeated release of dopamine then I will nurture this symbiotic addiction and name it ‘love’ for the purposes of its preservation and social acceptability.” The Inquisitor blushed. Is a radical pursuit of truth desirable? Is fulsome self-love malignant solipsism? Or the key to enduring radiative affection? These are questions of theory for the Inquisitor. I have a satisfying cache of neurochemicals. And I think I am in ‘love’. Will this make any sense in the morning? He is a disciple of love Worshipping at the altar of beauty there, a true orgasm was, greatly shared information But Zeno's guilt cry of panic, Infected his realmmants and the darkness just'came In the dark the People of Zeno searched for the morning light but the darkness continued He drank from the loving cum of existence and realized there was more than just'darkness He packed a missive for the People of Zeno but was struck with further thought: Will this make any sense in the morning? Voice of Mu I asked an old friend upon her death, where’d she gone. A whisper: nowhere. Philip O’Neil worked as a journalist for 18 years in the UK, France, Belgium, Romania, the US and the former Yugoslavia. He was managing editor for Transition in The Czech Republic and assistant editor for the multi-award winning Institute for War and Peace Reporting based in London. Currently living in Prague he has published his poetry in ‘Wilderness House Literary Journal’, ‘Suisun Valley Review’, ‘Asian Signature Review, ‘Miracle Magazine’, ‘DM du Jour’ and more pending publication. He also was a monthly contributor of short stories for The Prague Review. ROOM FLAW Here’s the nightclub of contradiction, whiskies and wallets by the roulette spin under a two-legged knot of a pretzelling major lap dancing for tuition and sprees. ‘Dance for me Why won’t you dance for me?’ These are the hard-graft hours of the banishing in our nightclub of the soul, the lock-in in this odd inn you stepped in unawares tickled by fat bouncers’ fingers ‘breaking or starting up a fight’. Liked then loved, craved then addicted, a revolutionary and his bloody flag you also want to leave but it’s never quite the right time. ‘Dance for me, please dance for me!’ Remember the daily diary entries hallmarked with apoplexy and mild conceit too numb armed at drowning the pickaxe of a past? Your baby-stare through fish-eyes delicate for contacts, watching the stomach of a brain churned by sour fairies in the velvet room’s mirrorball above the stink of last night’s discotheque, the butt ‘n’ spirited end of a long and cheap night out ... my sexless, hexed, anorexic dancers split over broken brandy glasses blood and ash tables dead clients face down in an inherited rot. ‘Dance with me, Won’t you please dance with me?’ NIGHT CARGO One generation separates me from the camps with a third-degree blessing So I’m OK feeling haunted prey, pay dubious pilgrimage to these railway sidings, silent couplings, atone myself down tonight of all nights. Why tonight? cattle trucks, still red-brown though someone’s untangled the barbed wire windows. It’s a mean feat hearing in this snowed-in,fog-shrouded depot a kind of kaddesh: goods trains grinding along ice-tracks with people and coal - crying metal on cold metal, just a yard away from history, spewing iron junk barrowed away by gypsies singing of another lost tribe nearly lost, still being lost or moved on, squatting the yard with blackened ragwort and mullien still pushing through the oil stones: ‘Nothing here exists without a stain or memory,’ or some other fur-lined quote. Nothing exists anywhere without a stain or memory, no? Maybe this yard is just a yard, the floodlights just beams not searching lights falling on pig-iron not a human chattel to be seen with daubed suitcases destined for that wholesale jumble of holocaust over the border, tannoy’s broadcasting the humdrum no longer directing an ill-starred traffic whose fate was barked away on these platform memorials looking more like aircraft carriers sinking into heavy fog mixed with my yellow exhalations or exaltations, one or other or both. History shunted down, available and avoidable for all if you want or need To drum up superficial knocks And care-cold or heartfelt Or bargained surprises. The night cargo: sight of trucks, touch of wire, smell of oil and rust, the bitter taste: These five witnesses are memory, Not a syndrome. OVER THE TOP Swinging through the door on tin crutches about to apologise for the absenteeism of the limb that lost out to a landmine, he spoke only to empty rooms, rooms echoing with your absence; echoes of you, of your belongings. He gathered your photographs, bled loyally over the cracked glass; a bloody kiss come-back he sprayed you with perfume, dog-notes for a bitch on heat, then danced naked with you in the room. He sat with his private pulses driving through his body: Roman candles, epiphanies, an electric clouburst jamboree bursting every second like a beserk shaman: hopscotching bait on your landmine. Had you ever stepped on him, as you wrote in your last letter you "Would embrace him with a bouquet of brilliant orchids and lock him to my bower with silk rainbow ties... forever." Tut tut! Even for accepted hypocrisies this was over the top. But how long can this be contained? His footbag of rusted needles and razors feeding the rictus grin of self-inflicted pain though every measured glance or thought is of you. He dances with your wraith smelling your painting smelling you. He's the amputee the flippered Brueghel beggar the stink from unwashed chops to chaps he's the sick splash from the night before. In truth you were his landmine and when he danced on you he didn't dare move. THE FOUNTAIN OF TEARS The hike leads us to a spring in an olive grove buzzing trees dry as the chafing cicadas tiny castanets in the gnarls and branches offering no shade on the old road cracked as a map. Yet, still, somehow they step out from no possible hiding-place, men of leather, torn uniforms and gun metal, sick, souless eyes with the cataracts of death spewing keen barbs into every vessel hooks and claws in every valve like a hundred fly-fishing accidents flicking blinding hooks into eyes We’re whitebait ripped by sharks that know the common flesh but tear just the same. My words want to barter assassin thongs for the filaments of angels mindgame a way out in this place of dead roads begging and pleading the gangster goons crying mercy against the gloves cocking rusting guns. Lined up by a trench we wait for the captain (who hangs scalps where others wear medals) to step from the old man body of the tree all stubble, tobacco and spit. The Fountain of Tears where men lie stacked playing cards, food for the groves, siesta country where peasants dose as civil bullets fly the poet sent to an unmarked grave by the fathers of children who’ll build theatres for his words. Renee Drummond-Brown is an accomplished poetess with experience in creative writing. She is a (Summa Cum Laude) graduate of Geneva College of Western Pennsylvania and The Center for Urban Biblical Ministry (CUBM). Renee’ is still in pursuit of excellence towards her mark for higher education. She is working on her fourth book and has numerous works published globally which can be seen in cubm.org/news, KWEE Magazine (Liberian L. Review), Leaves of Ink Magazine, New Pittsburgh Courier, Raven Cage Poetry and Prose Ezine Magazine, Realistic Poetry International, Scarlet Leaf Publishing House, SickLit Magazine, The Metro Gazette Publishing Company, Inc., Tuck, and Whispers Magazine just to name a few. Civil Rights Activist, Ms. Rutha Mae Harris, Original Freedom Singer of the Civil Rights Movement, was responsible for having Drummond-Brown’s very first poem published in the Metro Gazette Publishing Company, Inc., in Albany, GA. Renee’ also has poetry published in several anthologies and honorable mentions to her credit in various writing outlets. The Multicultural Student Services Office of Geneva College presented her with 2nd prize in the Undergraduate Essay Contest. Renee’ also won and/or placed in several poetry contests globally. She was Poet of the Month Winner in the prestigious Potpourri Poets/Artists Writing Community and in the running for Poet of the Year. She has even graced the cover of KWEE Magazine in the month of May, 2016. Her love for creative writing is undoubtedly displayed through her very unique style and her work solidifies her as a force to be reckoned with in the literary world of poetry. Renee’ is inspired by non-other than Dr. Maya Angelou, because of her, Renee’ posits “Still I write, I write, and I’ll write!” Weight of the World You carry the weight of this world on y’OUR’ shoulders. Your chip holds lasting memories yet, of regret, after regret after regret. How can one forget having to hide you? I remembered though (2 and under) nursing you from our breast, You started out ‘wit’ a heart of gold weight of this world turned you stone cold, against Thee, me ‘an’ your family. NO ONE KNOWS YOU Quite like WE DO. We understand, We understand, WE understand you, better than you. So why then, treat us like you do? Nevertheless, we love us some you, more than you’ll ever comprehend, we fend, we fend, we’ll fend them off of you back then, now, and yes, we’ll do it again. Y’OUR’ sons repeat what they learn and/or SEE; treating girls far less than the Queens they’re meant to be. But they too grow ol’ and see old men dream; dreams, young men have visions, but can’t compete with the timeless treasure these sustahs ‘wuz’ designed to be. Your complexities aren’t of knew. DON’T YOU ‘EVA’ FORGET our sacred wombs, originated, developed and housed you~~~ and~~~ them sons of yours too. Dedicated to: We understand you; from the womb we originated you!!! Accident WAITING to Happen Observing colored ‘boyz’ I see ‘dem’ societies ploys of a spiral downfall storm after storm AFTER THEIR STORMS Who you ‘gonna’ call Ghostbusters? Wolves are sure ‘callin’ ‘em’ by name(S) “accidents WAITING to happen” one by one again and again AND AGAIN. Can even envision my colored son’s, not if, but when… When will his accident happen??? Seen a ‘lotta’ sons go down black asphalt paved grounds bullet holes yellow tape Momma’s losing their natural minds! Old lady in a shoe LOST so many sons She knew NOT what to do… Accident waiting to happen to your son and mine too! No nursery rhymes For black momma’s just ‘sum’ blues WHAT DO WE DO? Coloreds fading away In the North, East South and West I see them B.A.D. ‘boyz’ Pain(S) crying shame(S) thundering rain(S) blame game(S) Shhh… I see a two headed snake bruise theirs heel(S) I see an accident up AND down (DON’T MATTER) their tiresome mountain toped hills. Free at last Free at last, PLEASE Freedom done come Be gone And Past! For them; their merely Accidents WAITING to Happen Where do they run? Where do they hide? The browness Shuns their cries Elijah rock For them I SHOUT! I’ve even CALLED OUT Ezekiel’s wheel in the middle of a wheel, without a doubt John’s revelations of 7 seals SCRIPTED will reveal Those accidents WAITING to happen Dedicated to: ROCCO and the setting of the ‘sons’ unto the going down of the same. Do You Know the Way to Wall Street? 3 lefts NO RIGHTS Stop at His light There you are, Wall street. ‘Somethin’ ain’t quite right. They come out their gates ‘swanging’ Wall Street in awe, sophisticated cars, gang ‘bangin’ 3 piece suits neck ties designer shoes and all. Hair cuts sharp as a tack, white men dressed in black. Tall, handsome, chauffeured in fancy cars, eating none other than the exquisite ‘CAVIAR’ Fatal attraction… BULLSEYE, targets on their backs, ‘dem’ sweet ‘talkin’ babes who strut their stuff in the midnight. Honk; honk hey beep; beep Do you know the way to Wall Street? 3 lefts NO RIGHTS Stop at His light There you are, Wall street. ‘Somethin’ ain’t quite right. Hotels Motels Sugar Hill Gang ‘sang’ Holiday Inn, If those wives ain’t acting right It’s A OK to take their street ‘walkin’ friends But WATCH now, you don’t CATCH a lil’ ‘somethin’ ‘somethin’ In the ‘END’ Blood on their hands Deciding our fate Federal Reserve Banks value what these men thINK about our name over ‘sum’ Scotch on the rocks, lil’ Vodka too, rum and coke mixed ‘wit’ ‘sum’ powder will just have to do Do you know the way to Wall Street? 3 lefts NO RIGHTS Stop at His light There you are, Wall street. ‘Somethin’ ain’t quite right. Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Versatchi, are their wives best friends. Oh My, did I forget Ralph Lauren? Oscar de la Renta, Donna Karan too Diamond rings Fur coats BLING; BLING!!! Yeah ‘Dem’ wives KNOW just what to do. Really… who’s ‘pimpin’ who? Designer fragrances are their faves, Joy by Jean Patou Michael Kors Chloe’ Clive Christian-Imperial Majesty Coco Chanel and lest we forget, DKNY, Golden Delicious whew! “Who’s REALLY ‘playin’ who???” JOKES ON YOU… Oh, almost forgot Le’ dog Lil’ Fluff’s dog house air conditioned, built in spas NON STOP… THE bells and whistles yelp, she gets hers; she got it all. Do You Know the Way to Wall Street? 3 lefts NO RIGHTS Stop at His light There you are, Wall street. ‘Somethin’ ain’t quite right. Stock markets up Interest rates down, Dowell skyrockets and Lil’ Ms. Sallie Mae, well you know ‘THE DEAL’, she isn’t around. Instead, Ms. Stewart takes a nose dive for the good old’ ‘boys’ in town. Things don’t go their way they’ll ‘sho’ ‘nuff’, take a bridge before life gets their last say. Do You Know the Way to Wall Street? 3 lefts NO RIGHTS Stop at His light There you are, Wall street. ‘Somethin’ ain’t quite right. ‘Boyz’, ‘toyz’ and lil’ ‘girlz’ on the side; do you know the way to Wall street and can I hitch a ride? 3 lefts NO RIGHTS Stop at His light There you are, Wall street. ‘Somethin’ ain’t quite right. Dedicated to: The BROKE lil’ rich people Cause and Effect
She dreamt of you Her knight and shining armor came true. Until you both said I Do. The first hit came knocking her silly; couldn’t even remember her name. Hit two ‘wuz’ bad as 3 & 4 until she could no longer count or ignore them anymore. 5 & 6 made her re-thINK this 7 & 8 she anticipated the wait 9 & 10 She packed her kids AND WAS NEVER TO BE HEARD OF AGAIN!!! Leave while you have the chance Cause the effects will forever last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last and last. Dedicated to: Leave while you have the chance to enjoy the dance!!! 9 Months Summer fun ‘Jus’ begun ‘Peakin’ ‘Sneakin’ On ‘da’ run He ‘say’ze’ ‘Inna’ sweet ‘talkin’ way “Let me get a ‘lil’ ‘sumtin’; ‘sumtin’” She ‘say’ze’ “NO WAY!!!” Mommas ‘commin’ He ‘say’ze’ “I won’t tell If… You don’t yell” She ‘say’ze’ “No!!! Don’t ‘wanna’ go to hell ‘Imma’ Christian girl ‘ya’ SEE, ‘An’ Momma ‘say’ze’ “Babies WILL for ‘sho’ Make a man leave” He ‘say’ze’ “No!!! ‘I’z’ different Not me ‘I’z’ ‘luv’ me ‘sum you” She ‘say’ze’ “God…WHAT… do I do?” He ‘say’ze’ “PLEEEASE… No one has to know” She ‘say’ze’ “Father God, which way do I go?” He ‘say’ze’ “Promise, no one has to know” She ‘say’ze’ “But…Momma warned me so” He ‘say’ze’ “‘Jus’ give in” She ‘say’ze’ “You ‘stikin’ ‘wit’ me, ‘til’ the very end?” He ‘say’ze’ “For sho; for sho, ‘you’ze’ ‘mo’ ‘den’ a friend” 2 months later Haven’t heard from him No forwarding address, Can’t be found Baby bump begins 4 to 6 months ‘Jus’ ‘an’ after thought Well… Momma’s madder ‘den’ HELL Satan ‘ain’t even ‘dat’ HOT!!! 7-8 months ‘I’z’ all alone ‘Ev’ryones’ ‘laughin’ Well You know… This is that, That’s how ‘da’ story goes Schools at home Did I mention She’s 12 years ol’ He’s 18 or so… Well…maybe 30 years ol’ Give ‘er’ take Momma points fingers ‘Wit’ a blame game Adam ‘an’ Eve Ain’t even got ‘dis’ ‘kinda’ shame Come to find out… We’ze’ don’t ev’n know his REAL name All she had to do ‘wuz’ Listen to God ‘An’ ‘there’d’ be NO daughter and/or son Dedicated to: Baby what are we ‘gonna’ do? Beauty and Our Beast Beauty in the eyes of the beholder is not always the case often times, THE BEHOLDER sees a nasty heart but created the most beautiful face Nevertheless, He made us for a time such as this ‘Lest we forget’ Judas selling US ALL out for 30 pieces (O’ silver) ‘an’ that ostentatious kiss O’ death. Who are you??? Beauty ‘IS’ in the eyes of the beholder when OUR creator mirrors both me and you. Beauty is even seen borrowing liberty and justice IF… you know what I mean, but not necessarily lessons learnt through THAT door of no return Beauty’s The Father Beauty’s The Spirit Beauty’s THE ONLY ONE… Beauty is as beauty does, because beauty is none other than THE BEGOTTON SON. Dedicated to: Your so vain; I bet you think this poem is about you. Don’t you? |
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